Working as an archaeologist has been hard work, the farthest from a vacation. There have been many different skills I learned throughout the last two weeks that will eventually help me in my future career. One of the most important skills that I have learned is teamwork. My team is made up of three students and one supervisor. We must work together to dig and take elevations or we would have a very disorganized dig site with people doing whatever they wanted. I always make my team members check when taking elevations to double check to get a better reading. Communication is also very important, we communicate when we find something or when we want to share an idea with the group. We must be open to listen to all ideas because our site is so unknown. Not only communicating but also being able to listen and correctly execute what you are told.
Another important skill is knowing how to work fast but efficiently. My group has a large area to work on and we must be able to analyze what we are digging up. There is pottery in the soil as well as walls, you do not want to destroy something with cultural significance. This way we have to balance between being quick but also being able to analyze between rock and pottery.
Other skills include technical, such as photography and calculations. Math comes in after digging we will measure how much we have gone down. This includes taking elevations with a machine called NIVO and subtract a higher point. It also includes knowing how to correctly use a camera to take photographs of the sight. It has been a hard two weeks but I have learned an amazing amount of archaeology first hand and it will help me develop better mind for analyses and teamwork for my future employment.
